


Two Names on the Bridge

by rosalynbair



Category: IT, IT (2017), IT - Stephen King, Stephen King - Fandom
Genre: Alcohol, Bowers Gang - Freeform, Cheating, F/M, Nudity, This was supposed to be a cute drabble, and its a lil sad, but now its not a drabble, but theres snow on the ground still, derry maine, how many times can i say "its really fucking hot outside", this is me saying that i miss summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 22:34:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14388507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosalynbair/pseuds/rosalynbair
Summary: In the summer heat, you go to visit your boyfriend Henry Bowers, only to become two names written on the bridge and nothing more.





	Two Names on the Bridge

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Henry Bowers fic, so I hope you like it   
> Feedback is welcome and encouraged  
> Find me and my writing on tumblr @rosalynbair

Late summer in Derry was hot. There were almost no clouds on most days, with the sweltering heat and no release from it until September. The townspeople grew tired easily under the sun, and most shops were closed by three in the afternoon. 

The people you had grown up around had sweat shining on their sunburnt skin, hair often frizzy from the heat and the drought that was overtaking Maine. Everyone had resorted to wearing tank tops and shorts, losing all want or need for the professionalism of uniforms and suits as they prepared themselves for their work days. 

Some days, the main drag of shops wasn’t even opened. The heat and knowledge of it only getting worse throughout the day only deterred anyone from leaving their houses that were barely kept cool with the rundown air conditioners that rested in the windows of their living rooms and bedrooms. The only professional repair man for air conditioners lived out of town and didn’t come in often. Or there was Belch Huggins and Henry Bowers – and despite the want for a cool house to stay in, no one wanted a member of the Bower’s Gang in their house. 

Your air conditioner was barely sputtering along, it made loud clanging noises every half an hour and the constant whirr of the ceiling fans in your house were drowned out by the mechanical issues of the air conditioner that was long overdue to be retired and replaced. 

It was the only reason you didn’t really mind taking the one bus transit system to the outer part of town where the farm houses lay. You were the only one on the old, rattling, loud engined bus. The interior made up of rusty metal and old blue pleather seats that had seen better days. Much like the rest of the town. 

Your bare thighs stuck to the seat from the sweat, inner skin chafing from when you walked to the bus stop barely twenty minutes ago. And although the bus stop was just down the street from your house, the heat had caught up to your body quickly. But even then, there was no way you were going to wear shorts longer than what you had on now. The less fabric the better.

The road around you blurred on the drive, grass a faded yellow as it dried out from the constant attention from the sun. The white paneled houses that passed were tinged a light beige from the flurry of dust the low winds blew through the streets. There was a strange sort of melancholy feel to the town in August. Much different from the flood filled spring that had just passed only two months ago, or the brutal and freezing winter that would soon come after the brief relief of autumn. 

The bus slowed at a stop sign, stopping completely – lurching forward slightly. You braced your sandal clad feet on the floor, stopping yourself from falling forward. The bus driver opened the doors for a woman with a basket, her arthritis riddled legs carrying her onto the hot bus. Any hope she had of getting away from the heat was lost as she sat down beside an opened window. 

Her eyes caught yours when she looked around, you give her a small but polite smile that she didn’t return. It didn’t matter any more how much of a good teenager you were, or how helpful you had been to everyone as you grew up. The moment you started dating Henry Bowers, everyone’s perception of you changed. You were no longer a singular entity. You had no defining personality or character. You were simply Henry Bowers’ girlfriend. 

You had somewhat expected it. If hadn’t been that bad when it was just Henry taking an interest in you, his gaze had followed you everywhere for weeks at school before he approached you without his gang of misfits. 

A walk to the theatres. Maybe actually paying for a movie. He had proposed to you, his cheeks rosy and his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans aggressively. Shoulders tight as he stared at you. His cheek held a bruise from a fight earlier in the week, the yellowing stain fading finally. 

A walk would be nice. You had said, you often worked in the office on your off periods to get your volunteer hours, and you knew very well the Henry Bowers was not treated nicely at home and didn’t have disposable money for a stupid movie to impress a girl. 

He had stuck by you after your walk around town, although the date had been quiet and wasn’t ideal to most people, he had tried to make conversation and not live up to his reputation when he was alone with you. Even when you wound up at the kissing bridge and sat on the fence over the river silently as you looked over the rushing waters, it had been nice. Romantic, even. 

He had asked you to go steady with him after a few weeks of sneaking into your room or going on late night walks when being in the house with his dad became too much – though he still had yet to explicitly tell you that Butch Bowers often beat him until he could barely move. Common knowledge was that he just got into fights outside of school. But you weren’t stupid. You knew him well enough, almost as well as Vic or Blech knew him. 

The same week of officially dating, he had carved your names into the bridge in his crude handwriting. It was barely legible, but it was there. It was beside one of Patrick’s carvings that held the name of one of his victims. 

In the few months… almost a year of dating Henry, Patrick hadn’t held a girl for more than a few days. Belch and Vic both had someone for a few months, but it never last. The pressure of being a part of the gang had always been too much in the end. They had known everything you had become to know. They had seen how the people of the town looked at them differently, treated them differently as if they had all become strangers.

The bus slowed down once more, stopping close to the Bowers’ farm. You stand, holding your small purse as your skin peeled away from the seat. You rub the backs of your thighs tenderly before walking to the front of the bus, holding onto the pole in front of the doors as you waited for the bus to fully stop and the doors to open. 

“Have a good day.” You say to the driver and the woman, stepping off of the bus and into the wall of heat.

There was no wind today, only the sun and humid air that attacked your skin and hair immediately. You had braided your hair back to combat the unavoidable frizz that would come to it. And you had lathered your limbs in sunscreen, but even so, your skin reddened under the kiss of the sun.

You began to walk the short way to Henry’s home. Your sweaty feet slipped around in your sandals, the straps digging in with each step. Your loose shirt clung to your body, the thin white fabric becoming partially see-through as the liquid clung and penetrated it. 

Your sunglasses didn’t do much to combat the sun – they were more fashionable than practical. Your mom had bought them for you from your last vacation to Tampa over winter break. The leopard pattern had been under scrutiny from Henry since you came home, always making jabs at them when he could.   
The frame was large on your face, covering from your eyebrows to your cheekbones. You often wore them in the Trans AM when you didn’t want to deal with the boys bullying antics and just wanted to melt into the back seat, trying to salvage your reputation as a nice person.

Henry’s home came into view, the old white house standing out against the beige of the farmland around it. You walked up the dirt driveway, kicking out rocks when they got stuck in your sandal. His driveway was long, and you turn off to the right towards the metal shed that had bullet holes pressed into it. 

Henry was never in the house, he was always with the pigs, in the barn, or in the fields. You hadn’t seen any sign of machinery in the fields, meaning he was behind the shed in the pig pen, or hiding up in the lofts of the old barn smoking a pack of stolen cigarettes. 

With a quick walk around the shed and a gentle scratch to Bip and Bop’s heads, you trek through the crispy grass to the faded red barn. The front doors were open, showing off the amounts of hay it had. There had been a horse around when you first started dating Henry, but it had passed away a few months ago from it’s old age. Henry had wanted to get a new one, but that was out of the question with how expensive they were, and Butch didn’t think Henry was worth getting another horse for. 

“Hen?” you ask, softly calling out as you stood at the doors of the barn. 

There was no reply, but you saw the gentle wisps of smoke up in the loft. You walk into the dingy, allergy inducing barn. Hay crunched under you while you walked, making your arrival noisy to anyone who could hear.

The steps up to the loft creaked under your weight, the air somehow growing hotter when you got into the loft. There was a small window that was open, shining light into the converted area. 

There was a small coffee table with a pack of cards and cigarettes. A half full bottle of off brand beer, and a few empty ones. 

An old recliner took up space to the left, and then two ugly, thread-bare couches to the right. The chair and one of the couches were empty.

The dirty blonde mullet haired boy was sprawled out on the other couch, shirtless with his arms resting against the back of the couch, a new bottle of cold beer in one hand. His head was tilted back, hair clinging to his sweaty forehead, his mouth opened to release a blissful moan.

It was a scene you had seen many times, but in all other instances, you had been the one sitting naked on him. You had been the one with your face buried into his neck with the tender skin between your teeth. 

You stood at the top of the stairs for a moment, taking in the intimate scene before you. As if it would somehow vanish like a mirage induced by the humidity and lack of water you had ingested today. After blinking a few times, the brunette was still rocking her hips – rising herself to the head of Henry’s cock and pushing herself back down. It didn’t take long for her lips to be on his, holding his cheeks in her small hands. 

“It appears as if I’ll have to come back another time.” You say coolly, the words tumbling out of your mouth.

A shrill shriek comes from the girl, her hands releasing Henry’s face to cover her chest. Her head whipped around to face you, green eyes wide with horror at someone seeing her nude and in a compromising situation. 

Henry was staring at you with a shocked expression taking hold of his usually stoic features. Your name falls from his lips, something else getting choked up in his throat before it could follow. Your eyebrow raised, and you shook your head.

“I should have guessed this would happen eventually.” You mummer, your eyes trailing to the girl again. She was everything Henry had gone after before he started dating you. Pretty, innocent, nice body.   
Something you had been once too. Before you had met him. “Y/n.” Henry says quietly, looking at you as if he had just come into your room for you to help him but cream on the welts he received from his father. 

He had no right to look at you that way. This was his compromising situation, not yours. But even so, you began to wrack your brain as you turned and walked down the stairs, searching for any indication in your memory that could show that this may have happened more than once, or any sign of why it happened.

Had you not been attentive enough? Did he not like the sex he had with you so much that he had to find someone else? Were you not good enough for Henry Bowers?

You heard fast movement around the loft as you exited the barn, sniffing slightly and blaming your water eyes on the allergens in the barn instead of the feeling of your heart plummeting into your stomach from the pain of dread.

“y/n.” Henry begs as he stumbles his way down the steps, buttoning up his ripped jeans.  
You keep walking, back into the humid summer afternoon.

“Don’t ignore me.” He tells you, grabbing onto your wrist when he catches up to you. He tugs on your arm, pulling you closer to him. You spin on your heel, hand coming up to collide with his cheek.

“You’re a bastard.” You hiss, fighting against the tears in your eyes until they were nearly blinding you. “I trusted you. I put my faith in you.”

“I didn’t mean to.” He tells you, his cheek growing red from your hand. His skin was already sunburnt, and there was old skin peeling off his nose. Dust from the farm covered most of his skin, making his tan darker than it already was. 

“If you didn’t mean to, you wouldn’t have done it.” You tell him. “Where’d you pick her up? How old is she?”

“She’s seventeen.” Henry sighs, looking down at his cowboy boots. “She’s new around town.”

“And you thought you’d show her the best Derry had to offer.” You scoff. “Nice.”

“It wasn’t like that.” He snaps, fear crossing his face as he realizes that you were genuinely angry with him. 

“It never is.” You grumble, pulling your wrist away from his grip. 

“So, uh.” Henry says nervously, watching you closely. “What… Wha’ happens now?”

“We become just two names on the bridge.” You say quietly.

He knows what that means. It was a phrase said often in town when couples broke up. Couples who put their names on the bridge rarely last, usually breaking up after a few days or a week after they carve their names +4E onto the old wood that the city counsel swore they would replace once day. 

He saw it in your tear-filled eyes that you were serious. That his one mess up in the entire relationship was going to ruin it. His one mistake, that he thought you would never find out about, was the thing that would break you up. Not the arguments, not moving away to go to college. It was just him being Henry. Henry Bowers living up to his rotten reputation. 

You turn away from him, unable to look at his shell-shocked expression. You leave the barn, walking back towards the road while hoping the bus wouldn’t be too late on it’s next round around the route.  
Henry stood at the doorway of the barn, watching you walk away from him for the last time.

You stop by the pig pen, leaning over the old fence to pet the pigs once more. “I’m not coming around anymore.” You tell them softly. “But you’re gonna be okay. Hen will take good care o’ you two.”

You had always had a soft spot for the pigs. You sometimes showed up and spent more time with them than Henry. Or you had often asked to come to his house just to see them. They were like fat dogs.   
With one final word and pet of goodbye, you walk back to the bus stop, leaning against a fence until it came to take you home where you would finally let your tears fall.


End file.
